re: Is this really a thing? Do people bake potatoes this way? First Ive ever seen of this.

Cook's Illustrated tested them. They made the potatoes get done a few minutes faster, but CI deemed them not worth the bother/expense. You may decide they're worth the extra 7 minutes or so.

They used 3 potatoes of the same weight. One was left alone as a control, one was impaled one on an aluminum potato nail, and the third was stuck on a stainless-steel skewer (because some nails are made of stainless-steel).

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We baked them all in the same 350-degree oven, rotating them after 30 minutes. True enough, the aluminum-studded potato finished first, the stainless-steel assist came in second, and the control potato took the longest.

The surprise? There was only a 7-minute difference between the speediest potato and the slowest. We wondered if more nails would speed things up enough to make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, no. Even a potato that had been run through with an absurd five nails cooked only 11 minutes faster than an intact potato.

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Their rec for cooking one fast: Poke several times with a fork and then microwave until slightly soft, 6 to 12 minutes, flipping it halfway through. Put in a 450-degree oven and bake on the middle rack until a skewer glides easily through, about 20 minutes.

My wife uses those potato bags/mitts (as seen on TV!) to speed microwave cooking. They work, but Tom Gresham (the gun guy in Natchitoches) posted that they had a hell of a kitchen fire caused by one.